


Bug

by KellerProcess



Series: Beelzefic [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Beelzebub gets a car, Gen, bashing millionaires and politicians, blatant abuse of Meatloaf, did I mention lots of swearing, lots of swearing, post nonapocalypse, rated teen and up because Beelzebub says fuck a lot, the DC Beltway is a nightmare from hell, unnamed and disposable OMC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 01:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19347040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KellerProcess/pseuds/KellerProcess
Summary: A man sells a rusty classic VW Bug on eBay.A mysterious stranger buys it.A mysterious stranger who makes him very, very nervous…A post-non-apocalypse fic in which Beelzebub buys a car. And scares some Americans.





	Bug

The 1960 Volkswagen Bug had been up on eBay all of eleven minutes and one second before someone hit the Buy It Now button.

He was surprised. Not that it had sold within eleven minutes and spare change, oh no, but because it hadn’t sold much faster. Yes, times were tough with half the world still struggling to recover from the Great Recession—though weren’t times always tough?

Not that he would know, of course. He’d bought this beauty in 1995 with the intent to fix her up, only to put her in storage with the rest of the classic cars. People who could do that really didn’t know much about recessions—including how they differed from depressions.

Wait. Did they actually differ?

Not that it mattered. This pretty gal was going to a nice new home, and he’d now have just enough room for the 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II that Chad had been looking to offload.

And he could donate that $35,000 to some charity or something. What was in right now? Was it war orphans? Yeah, you couldn’t go wrong with war orphans.

You couldn’t have asked for a smoother transaction, either. Sure, the buyer was fairly new to eBay, but they’d made some pretty hefty purchases: a signed first edition of _Lord of the Flies_ ($300,000), an original print of some 1950s B-movie called _The Fly_ ($500,000), and, oddly, some old science book about fruit flies from 1600 or whatever (at a whopping $1,000,000). Pattern much? Not that he was judging. Some people collected classic cars and vintage wine—others collected…well, apparently fly-related…stuff.

Hey, it took all kinds.

Anyway, new though they were to the site, B. L. had paid immediately and politely declined his offer to ship the Bug to London.

“It’s no bother,” ze’d written. “I’ll be in the States visiting an acquaintance anyway. Less hassle for you, hm?”  
  
Oh, ze was definitely getting five stars for that one. Shipping cars was a pain in the ass, even if you could afford people to do all the work.

Which he could.  
  
Sure, zir insistence on picking it up in the parking lot of an abandoned K-Mart was a little…odd. But it wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe ze just didn’t want the hassle of getting into and out of a gated community.

Anyway, he was here now, waiting right beside the Bug at 11:00 a.m., just like B. L. had asked.  

Just as the second hand on his Rolex clicked the time over to 11:01, a figure stepped around the corner of the building.

He hadn’t been sure what to expect of B. L. Car enthusiasts, after all, came in all shapes and sizes, both physically and budget-wise.

But he hadn’t expected the small, almost frail figure striding toward him like ze owned the parking lot and everything within a fifty-mile radius.

Nor did he expect the billowing, asymmetric, dusty-looking tablecloth of a green skirt over equally dusty black capris. Or the mesh shirt, or the long, glimmering green jacket that looked like something you might see in a movie about the Franco-Prussian war if Terry Gilliam got his hands on it. Or the black combat boots stained with something pale and milky.

Or….

Was that a stuffed-toy fly on zir head?

Well, all of this was a little weird, sure. But hey, when you were a millionaire, you’ve seen weirder.

What was a little more than a little weird, though, was how his pulse kicked up as ze neared. How his palms began sweating. He felt the sudden urge to back away but resisted. That would be rude.

Hey, sometimes first impressions were just off, was all.

“B. L.?” he asked as ze approached. Or at least he was about to right before a fly buzzed past his ear.

“Hi.” Unmistakable British accent. Delicate voice.

Ze didn’t offer zir hand.

He wasn’t sure why that relieved him.

“Hi. Here she is.” He gestured to the car and slapped at his ear with another hand. Damn, it wasn’t even April yet and the flies were out. “You’ve really bought a good one here, B. L. She’s—”

“Uh-huh. Great. Full tank?”

Okay. Person of few words. With the way he was feeling, that was probably for the best. “Yeah,” he said, slapping another fly away. “Filled her up this morning. The seats might need some w—”

“Keyzz.” Ze held out zir hand.

Normally, he’d be kind of pissed off by that abrupt, waspish tone but—that buzzing.

It didn’t come from zir. It couldn’t have.

No, it was all these fucking flies zipping through the air.

B. L. sighed and rolled zir eyes, and fuck. Holy fuck. They were baby blue one second, then faceted and scarlet the next. Then baby blue.

It was broad daylight. The sun was behind zir.

There was no way in hell.

At the thought of the word, his pulse knocked against his wrists and neck like something was trying to get out.

Or in.

“Keyz!”

_Get out. Get out of here. Give zir the keys and get. Out._

His hand shook as he thrust them toward zir.

When B. L. grabbed them, zir fingers brushed across his, and—fuck!

He stumbled backward, his head filled with buzzing and pain. Visions of fire and rot and screams.

And so much—

So many flies.

All over him.

Zipping past his ears.

Crawling up his nose.

Rubbing their hairy little arms all over his face—

“Thankzzz.”

He sank to his knees. He barely heard the door shut. The engine roar—buzz?—to life, and the car zip from the vacant lot.

And just like that, everything was gone.

The flies. The clammy palms. His heart beating out _run run run_ and _wrong wrong wrong_.

As his breathing returned to normal, he looked toward the retreating Bug—

Just in time to see a ring of fire pop open from thin air like a hellish mouth, then pop closed and vanish as soon as the Bug’s tailpipe passed through.

The faint smell of sulfur and burning insects was the only evidence anyone had been there at all.

 

Oh, he got the _hell_ out of the parking lot. (Wrong word. Definitely wrong word there.) But less than a mile later, he had to pull over and truly let himself freak the fuck out.

Who was that? _What_ was that?

It couldn’t be the alcohol—could it? That 1932 chardonnay had tasted a little off last night….

Yes. The chardonnay. That was good. That was good, and he was running with it.

Because the other possibility wasn’t so good, and frankly, it made him want to get out of the car and run, and never, ever stop running.

 

Of course, he left great feedback for B. L., then promptly deleted his account. Any other person, he’d just have blocked, but he didn’t want to take any chances of pissing zir off.

Next time he wanted to sell a classic car, he’d stick to a specialist site.

Though he had a feeling there’d never be a next time.

 

***

The portal spit Beelzebub out roughly fifty miles from the Washington, DC, Beltway. Now, normally ze wouldn’t have minded spilling out right onto a busy road, but the Interstate 495 was always a clusterfuck—worse than any road in the UK, with or without Crowley’s “help”—and for some reason, no amount of temptations, reveres-miracleing or just bloody screaming at drivers could get them to just. move.

Heaven, ze doubted any of the perpetually brassed-off drivers would notice an infernal commuter in their ranks even if they sped past on a blazing motorcycle blasting Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”

Anyway, it didn’t matter.

The senator from South Carolina knew ze was coming to collect. A few more hours would only make his fear more…piquant.

And besides, ze wanted to spend a little more time with zir new toy.

“Only you’re not a toy, are you, Bug?” ze asked, stroking the steering wheel.

The Bug was perfect. Thoroughly rusted, but sturdy and powerful. Crowley, of course, would have called it repulsive.

But that was Crowley for you. No sense of taste or appreciation of decay.

And, if ze could read cars correctly, Bug was also mighty fucking irritated at being locked up in the dark for nearly twenty-five years.

Match made in hell, them.

“Hm, let’s start with something easy,” ze said, flicking on the radio. “Bug, call Dagon.”

The insufferable chipper voice of some public-radio person or another buzzed into static.

“Dagon, Lord of the Files.”

Beelzebub smirked. Oh, yes. Excellent performance.

Dagon heaved a sigh. “Right. Hastur’s made an absolute shithash of his paperwork—again. So if you’re going to just call me and breathe into the phone, or radio, or whatever the heaven you’re using, Zee, Satan help me I’ll—”

“It’zzz perfect,” Beelzebub said with a sigh of her own. Only this one was somewhere north of happy. And buzzier. Like how you felt when watching flies crawl all over the corpse of a banker.

Silence. For a brief moment, Beelzebub thought Dagon had rung off.

But then zir secretary chuckled.

“Love at first sight, then?”

Beelzebub’s grin was wide enough to catch flies in. “And more. You should see it, Dagzzz—well, you’re going to tonight, anyhow. Soon as I’ve reversed-miracled her to be flame-proof, and fly-proof, and, well, you know. Hell-proof. And taken care of that debt a certain politician owezzz me.”

“Right, then. So don’t wait up?”

“I’d say no, but we all know you’re always up.”

“Mm,” Dagon agreed. And just when Beelzebub thought she’d really rung off this time, she added, “Crowley’s rubbing off on you, then?”

Beelzebub gasped in horror. “No, you cheeky pencil-pusher! Crowley’zzz a flash bastard with a car he’d make greasy love to if he wazzn’t already fucking that goofy cherub of his. This, Dags. This is a _real_ car. Bug’s a no-nonsense hellmobile who’s going to help me pollute the air, cause ten-car pileups, and put the fear of Satan into more than a few American Congrezzzpeople. I’m sure she has no intentions of ever passing any admissionzz standards. Isn’t that right, Bug?”

The Bug gave a low rumble of approval.

“Oh, heaven, you’ve already named the blessed thing!”

“Shut up,” Beelzebub snapped, but it was all in good fun. “Anyhell, don’t you have Hastur’s gibberish to sort out?”

“All right, all right. No need to get stroppy.”

“Oh, before you go…be sure to leave out some rotten fruit in my offizze before you close up, yeah? The swarm gets a bit tetchy after dealing with millionairezzz.”

Really, you’d have thought they didn’t realize that wealth had been zir idea. Then again, maybe, just like their master, they were tired of rich people, too, and wanted to tip them all right into the maw of the nearest kraken.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dagon huffed. “Anything else, Your Worshipfulness?”

“Tell Hastur if he ever turns in paperwork you don’t like again that I’ll perzzzonally see to it that he hazz to feed the hellhounds for a century.”

Dagon snorted. “Hanging up now, Boss.”  
  
Beelzebub clicked off the radio, then thought better of it and tilted the nob until she picked up just the song she was looking for.

 _There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky,_ __  
And a killer's on the bloodshot streets  
And down in the tunnels where the deadly are rising  
Oh, I swear I saw a young boy down in the gutter  
He was starting to foam in the heat

As Beelzebub pulled out into Beltway traffic, ze smiled.

You know what? What the heaven.

“Bug? Call our friend from South Carolina and hang up after I’ve done some heavy buzzing over the line.”

After all, flies were attracted to the smell of nervous sweat.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a picture of the rusty VW Bug Ewan McGregor sold on eBay in 2016. 
> 
> I want to be very clear here. RPF deeply disturbs me, and I would never write it, even for a lighthearted fic like this. The car and the fact it was on eBay are real; the wealthy man selling it is not, nor is he meant to be a commentary on the car’s very real former owner.
> 
> Also, regarding Beelzebub's pronouns: I tend to toggle back and forth between ze/zir and she/her because 1) I kind of do that for myself and I like it and 2) I like the idea of ze doing it. Some fics about Zee will use ze/zir, some will use she/her, and some will use a mix. It's sort of whatever I and/or Beelzemuse want that day.


End file.
